By Peter Townson/Staff Reporter
The sky above Doha sparkled with Qatar’s national colours last night, as maroon and gold fireworks soared above the Corniche during an exciting climax to the National Day celebrations.
The display, which lasted 12 minutes, lit up the night sky with a dazzling array of some of the best fireworks in the world.
As well as the incredible quality of the display, the sheer extent of the show was amazing to watch.
Spanning the length of the Corniche, the display was enjoyed by onlookers making use of vantage points around the entire area.
Highlights of the show included the appearance of hearts, flowers and smiley faces in the sky, as well as letters spelling out the name of the country.
Andrew Howard, director of Howard and Sons who organised the display, told Gulf Times that he could not have been happier with how the show went.
He explained that his team had worked alongside the Qatar National Day Organising Committee and a number of local schoolchildren to design a show specially for the occasion.
The display was synchronised to a track which was also composed for the evening and performed by the children who helped to come up with the creative concept behind the show.
“It was really exciting for us to work on this project and the children developed some really interesting concepts about the future, which is why we had, for instance, baby footprints across the sky,” he said.
The show has been some six months in the making, and Howard explained that eight computers fired off the fireworks which took 20 technicians around 18 days on site to set up.
“It was a real privilege for us to work on,” he added.
And with almost all of Qatar celebrating the day, even the fireworks were highly patriotic, with the finale of the show featuring the colours of the nation’s flag spread across the Corniche.
“I thought the fireworks were spectacular - Qatar has had a lot to celebrate this year and this firework display added to the sense of national pride,” said one British expatriate, who has lived in Qatar for 12 years.
“It was a fitting testament to the year that Qatar has had, and they have to be some of the best fireworks I have ever seen,” added one of her friends, another long-term resident of Qatar.
